Talk:Vulgar Latin

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It was used to write the Vulgate and ...

As far as I know, Vulgar Latin was a strictly spoken language. Vulgate was written in late Latin (as opposed to classical of the 1st century B.C. - 1st century A.D.), but it has very little to do with Vulgar Latin (except, perhaps for the name). Am I correct? --Uriyan

I'd say your statement was highly debatable, just as the statement that vulgar Latin "was used to write the Vulgate" is over-simplistic. The term "Late" Latin can also cover a multitude of sins. The point about the Vulgate was that it was written in the language of the people, ie. a language an ordinary person could understand. It's true that the average person probably couldn't have written "classical" Latin. However, all varieties of "late" Latin, including "vulgar" Latin (which also means the language of the people), were spoken forms only until such time as they were written down - in documents such as the Vulgate. --user:Deb

Well, I'm only a beginning student of Latin, so I can't say for sure, of course, but I'd gotten the impression that the dialects called "Vulgar" are the more extreme versions (e.g. in the version that gave rise to French, the nouns ceased being inflected on most of the cases, the accusative being used as the basis rather than the nominative). Vulgate, however, is written down in very literary, ordered Latin that would have kept Virgil (mostly) happy if he had seen it. --Uriyan

I think what you're saying is that Jerome used more "correct" Latin than the spoken dialects normally referred to as "vulgar" Latin - which did, as you say, form the basis of the Romance languages - so I'd go along with that. --user:Deb

Some thoughts I had prepared before, but I had really bad connecting troubles

Vulgata was in late Latin, this is commonly agreed, even if it was copied in several versions with slight linguistic differences too, despite its original goal of becoming an absolutely unique reference text.

The point is the definition of Vulgar Latin, which I have seen in the article described as limited to 3rd century: effectively, an idiom usually called "Vulgar Latin" was used until its direct merging with the early romance idioms - we could say, until some time before Langue d'Oil and Langue d'Oc appeared, 11th century, first complex examples of writing in "popular" language; let's allow some delay for the evolution, but still it's not 3rd c., unless we are talking about the evolution in the German and English areas, which is another matter.

Looking at italian and french areas, if Latin was officially spoken, Vulgar Latin was then popularly spoken until the popular language turned to localised forms. Obviously we stop talking about a Vulgar Latin when the local dialects start collecting a certain amount of local carachteristics that make them become a different idiom, and it becomes simply a "Vulgar", sometimes with a geographical attribute: Vulgar Italian, Vulgar Gaulish. Then they will evolve into romance languages when an independent value will be recognised them (Oil, Oc, Sì). The word "Romance" comes indeed from "romanicae loci", of a place in the Roman Empire, this still ideally includes all the dialects as a part of the whole latin family.

St.Jerome's Vulgata was written (or, if you wish, translated) around 400 AD (I don't precisely remember, but I know it was started a few years before 400 and ended maybe a couple of years after). At that time a difference with Vulgar should have been well concrete, indeed. But, of course, they still merely were two forms of Latin, so perhaps (in response to Uriyan's first question) it wasn't "very little" what they shared.

Certainly, it was the age in which, apart form declensions, many roots were changing (i.e., "equus" > "caballus", etc.). Recently, some studies (which IMHO need anyway a more scientific development) suggest that pronounciations too started to make diverse, supposedly with already a similarity to modern local pronounciations, with the most spectacular (alleged) effect in the area of Naples. However, these changes were obviously not uniform in the Empire's territory, so the greatest differences were perhaps to be found among different forms of Vulgar Latin in different areas (also due to the acquisition of newer "local" roots), even if we ought to remember that most of theory is based on reconstruction a posteriori rather than, evidently, on texts (poor people > poor supports > poor remains > poor direct knowledge). It was in the Council of Tours (800AD?) that priests were ordered to preach in vulgar to be comprehensible. This could be a documented moment of the evolution. Late Latin, still based in Rome, presumedly reflected these acquisitions, recording what was changing in a nearer area - we could fairly say, in Italy. Formal Latin was "frozen" by the codifications of roman law on one side (Justinian) and of the Church on the other side, finally unified by the medieval copysts and since then forever separated from already independent romance vulgar idioms. Italian Dante (14th c.) based his personal success in describing Latin as a language that had become quite "artificial" (De Vulgari Eloquentia- BTW, written in Latin :-).

Due to this lack of uniformity, or of unity, I effectively am with those who are not convinced that Vulgar Latin really "is the ancestor of Romance languages": Latin is a language, while Vulgar Latin is simply a collective name for a group of derived dialects with local - not necessarily common - carachteristics, that don't make a "language", at least in a classical sense. It could perhaps be described as a sort of "magmatic" undefined matter that slowly locally developed in the single earlier forms of each Romance language, that consequently find their proper ancestry in formal Latin. Vulgar Latin was an intermediate point of the evolution, certainly not a source. Maybe a formalistic theory, but more logical, IMHO. --Gianfranco

I thought the Council of Tours provided for preaching in the vernacular???JHK

Uhh, yes...? Isn't that what he said? (It really would be better if we could just throw away that word "vulgar" and replace it with the much less confusing "vernacular".) Brion VIBBER

I believe the two terms are indicating the same thing to us, here. Now, I don't know if in English it's the same, but in my language (and I dare suppose in Latin too) "vulgar" is better used to indicate a minor, popular form of the main language, therefore it focuses on the language (not considering users), while "vernacular" refers to what in detail people commonly speak, therefore it focuses on people and their native dialect (not considering the language, this time). They would then be used depending on two different points of view: vulgar when referring to the language, vernacular when referring to the dialect. Here we are talking about a minor form of latin language, so I believe "vulgar" might be more proper (if, as in premise, this is how it goes in English too)

BTW, I loosely remember that vernaculus had also a meaning of christian servant (sort of sacrist), and in this sense was also in Vulgata, therefore it might be confusing, since we are talking about the whole latin language (seen in its minor popular form) and not about the latin used by the Church - anyway, the root of this word was more widely used in later times than the root of vulgus. --Gianfranco

The primary meaning of "vulgar" in English is roughly equivalent to "obscene" (see definition in American Heritage Dictionary); people often have to be explicitly taught when they first hear of it that "vulgar Latin" does not mean "dirty words used by the Romans", which is why the "vulgus" derivation gets cited. "Vernacular" in English (AHD definition) has no connection to Christianity or Church Latin that I'm aware of. I'm not sure what you mean by the difference between "a minor, popular form of the main language" and "what in detail people commonly speak"...? "Vernacular" covers both as far as I know, while "vulgar" brings neither to mind except as a learned alternate meaning. --Brion VIBBER

Ummm...I'm not debating meanings -- I'm actually questioning the word used at the council of Tours, because my understanding was that the vernacular (whether or not a form of vulgar Latin) was what was specified...JHK

Hmm, did it apply to non-romance-speaking areas? Ah, wait, here's a reference: « it was decided "that all bishops, in their sermons, give necessary exhortations for the edification of the people, and that they translate these sermons into rustica Romana lingua, or into German, so that all be able to understand what they say." » [1] Okay, better make that "vernacular". --Brion VIBBER

Could we perhaps focus on the fact that "Vulgar Latin" is a specific phrase coined by philologists to refer to this form of Latin (using the word "vulgar" of course in its original sense, not the contemporary definition quoted above), whereas the expression, "the vernacular", is not restricted to Latin? I don't think there's any real dispute. Deb

Agreed. --Brion VIBBER

Moving on to other strange things in this article: can anybody explain what this statement means? "Vulgar Latin developed differently in two principal directions: italian-french on one side, and anglo-saxon (german-english) on the other side." I'm not too clear about this "anglo-saxon" or "german-english" Vulgar Latin; what is it? Where is it evidenced? What happened to it? And where do Iberia and Romania (to the west and east of the areas mentioned) fit in? Brion VIBBER, Thursday, May 30, 2002

That's a new one on me, and I didn't spot it in the article. It's true that Vulgar Latin did develop differently in different geographical directions - more than two, I would have said - but I've never heard of any Anglo-Saxon version. On the contrary, the Germanic languages are a quite separate sub-group of Indo-European. My guess is that someone has their wires crossed. Deb

May 30

The other possibility is that he was trying to say something about Vulgar Latin as spoken in Roman-occupied Britain... but that would likely be prior to the invasion by the Germanic-speaking Angles and Saxons, so I'm left even more confused! --Brion VIBBER

I take the point, but if that's what is meant, then it's quite wrongly expressed and still begs the other questions you asked. Yes, Latin did survive in Britain in the context of the Celtic church - I've seen a pidgin form on Celtic Christian monuments - but not in England. I doubt the Saxons would have had more than a nodding acquaintance with the language, until they were converted by an emissary from Rome in about 600AD. Obviously their attempts to use Latin would have been flawed, but the important point is that, for them, it would not have constituted the vernacular, but would have been a literary language, as used by Bede and others of that period. I don't think this falls within our definition of Vulgar Latin. Deb

Are you sure that sive has no descendants in Romance? I think Romanian sau "or" comes from it. -phma 04:05, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A couple of possibilities

I have not had the chance to check the following two brief comments carefully, but I thought that I'd submit them before I forget them.

Are you sure that domus and magnus do not have any Romance reflexes (via Vulgar Latin)? I should have thought that domus is reflected in Sp. domo, Fr. dôme, and Italian duomo (obviously the sense has become more specific, viz. referring to [ecclesiastical] architecture) as well as in the titles (Sp.) mayordomo and (It.) maggiordomo (and Fr. majordome?). As for magnus, Old French has maigne and maine (though there's always an outside possibility that these reflect a Germanic word).

Of course it's always tricky to tell without thorough research that Romance languages have not reborrowed the words later, but these two examples seem worth checking to me. -- A. G. Kozák

I think that the duomo in Italian may be a Germanic borrowing. In Swedish, a cathedral is a domkyrka, literally a "judgment church," i.e. the church where the bishop held his court. Most Romance do keep some forms of magnus for comparison, Spanish has mayor and so forth. It's sometimes hard to tell whether these words are preserved or reborrowed. I have expanded the section on vocabulary with some different Classical and Vulgar parallelisms with examples I think are a bit less ambiguous. Smerdis of Tlön 14:09, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Romance

The article says the term "Romance" comes from ROMANICAE LOCI.

I had read that it comes from the adverbial form of ROMANICVS, as in ROMANICE PARABOLARE > hablar romance (with the typical loss of unstressed vowels in the middle of words).

This seems more likely to me. In Spanish at least, we can see that the abverbial form was used for talking about the language, e.g. hablar latín < LATINE PARABOLARE (to be contrasted with the adjective latino from LATINVS. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 17:04, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That may be; it also might represent (lingua) romanica, the language of the Roman empire. Might want to alter that to say simply that it comes from ROMANICU(M) / ROMANICA, "of the Roman empire;" that paragraph is not one of mine, though, so whoever wrote it first might want to step in. Smerdis of Tlön 19:05, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how it would have come from any form of ROMANICVS, A, VM except for its adverb. Modern Spanish has idioma románico from IDIOMA ROMANICVM and lengua románica from LINGVA ROMANICA, and romance from ROMANICE. I'm sure the old French form romanz (which gave us the English word) is the same. The adjectival forms would have given *romanique.

I've consulted my Diccionario Esencial Santillana de la Lengua Española ISBN 84-294-3415-1 and under romance is says "(del lat. romanice, en románico)". I'm going to alter the article. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 21:10, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The article is somewhat poor

The best was to gather speakers of the main Romance languages to help build it. And compare them, to Vulgar Latin. I've read documents from Portugal of the 12th century and Vulgar Latin and Classical latin where seem as separeted languages. How can you explain why Latin Grammar was so different from Vulgar Latin? Equus and caballus were two words for the two separated languages from Rome. If Vulgar Latin evolved from Classical, why the Romance languages evolved in grammar and lexicon in the same way and from that same way they shifted the sounds? The language brought to Portugal in the 150 BC was the same that it is spoken today but modified by the dust of time. Classical Latin was until very recently the language of high-society and since allways (in Portugal) a country with almost 1000 yrs of independence, seen has two very different latin languages (but related). Portuguese was adopted in Portugal, not because it wasnt inteligible, but because Portuguese language (Portugal's Vulgar Latin) became very popular for poetry, earlier it happened with provençal, and sometime later, the same with languages, like Spanish. Please see the evolution of Portuguese from vulgar latin: Portuguese language#From Latin to Portuguese. Why not build the same for Spanish, Italian, French and Romanian, at least, for comparation and evolution? -Pedro 15:23, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, it's actually quite a good article. Some changes do need to be made, however. I'm making them right now:

More consistency with the "Latin in capitals, Romance in italics" rule.
Wiki tables instead of HTML ones
Fixing grammar, punctuation etc.
Filling in a few gaps
More consistency with transcriptions
etc

— Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 16:46, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, the distinction I've tried to follow, and which seems to be followed in several books I've seen, is that Latin words considered as etymological roots appear in capitals; Latin texts or attested forms from authors appear as any other foreign language texts, in italics. This is what I went by in my edits; of course, consistency being the hobgoblin that it is, I doubt I applied it in every case. Smerdis of Tlön 17:04, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that is the normal academic practice. I'm implementing it right now. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 17:08, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Has allways I contributed with Portuguese. As for pronunciation of céu (Sky) in Portuguese, is \sEw\ the sound \sew\ (seu) means "yours". -Pedro 20:17, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Spelling and capitalisation conventions

I vote we should be as accurate as possible in this article. This means we shouldn't support the fiction that letters such as U existed, or that lower-case letters were used in Latin.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should abandon English standards. I know that it is normal, for example, to write "curriculum vitae" in English, even though in actual Latin the "v" was not something separate from the "u", and "curriculum uitae" would be more correct, and "CVRRICVLVM VITAE" even better still. But I'm not saying we should change usage. I understand that these words have become part of the language. I don't want ordinary people to have to write like the Romans, or pronounce [ku'rrikulu^m 'wi:tae] instead of [k^hə'ɹɪk^hjələm vaɪt^hi:] or however they like to say it. I get the idea of English usage. I get that quotations that people repeat in order to sound learned, such as alea jacta est! are best written and pronounced the way people usually do.

It's just that in a serious description of Latin, such English usage has no bearing whatsoever. To say in all seriousness that, for example, jugamos came from jocamus is to lie. It came from IOCAMVS. This principle applies generally: I think we should always tell the truth.

Because of this, I advocate the use of Latin orthography (as close to the real thing as practical) in this article and certain others, and I'll revert any change to this unless it is backed up with arguments. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 19:22, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm backing this up with an argument, so I don't expect that you will revert these changes, based on your statement above.

I take issue with your position that the standard contemporary manner in which Latin is rendered is "inaccurate." In addition, I don't believe that this is "support[ing] the fiction that letters such as U existed, or that lower-case letters were used in Latin."

Any Latin textbook, as well as my copies of Latin histories and poetry in Latin are all rendered with the v/u distinction (but not with j's, and not with macrons over the vowels outside of textbooks) and with lowercase letters, capitalization for the beginning of sentences and proper nouns, and with basic punctuation. It would be counterproductive and nonstandard (and not just for English text with the periodic Latin phrase thrown in now and then) for us to decide that any use of lattin must be in the 24 letter alphabet and in all caps.

And, by the way, I don't think it's very good form to set terms that must be met by others or else you plan to revert the article, since this isn't your article, Chameleon.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 21:03, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well it's definitely not yours! All you've done is revert work. It's more User:Ihcoyc's baby. But anyway, that's irrelevant. Stick to the subject, which is that the way you have put the article gives the false impression that Latin was written like modern languages. Readers are better served by having the truth told, I contend. It may be standard in some sense to pretend that Latin was written in a certain way, but at the end of the day it wasn't. It just wasn't. So why pretend? Why are readers better served by being told something that isn't true?

"Counterproductive"? How? How can the truth be counterproductive? You have to consider different the different purposes: a book of poetry in Latin published in the 21^st century has the clear aim of entertaining non-native speakers of Latin in the 21^st century. To do this, it is appropriate to adopt certain conventions that readers will be shocked to find broken. An article on etymology has a completely different goal. It aims to highlight and not white-wash the differences between a source language at one point in time, and a receiving language at another point. With this objective, it is clearly counterproductive to artificially minimise the difference between the two language variants in question.

You take issue with my position, but you can't deny it. Chameleon 22:35, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quamquam litterae U et u non classicae sunt, Vicipaedia Latina tamen eis utitur. Or... although U and u are not used in classical Latin, they are used on the Latin Wikipedia. I think demonstrates that it is not "wrong" to use them. It is very common for both lower case letters, and for letters not traditionally used in Latin, to be used now. I don't think the article should be changed just to reflect a view that the way the majority of textbooks write these words is wrong. Angela . 21:44, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Come on, that is quite a laughable argument. I took a look at the Latin Wikipedia a while ago. I saw they weren't even capable of discussing on the Village Pump in Latin. They were writing in English! What a farce! I would love the Latin WP to be a vibrant community, and I'd participate in it, but the fact is that it is basically on the same level as the Klingon WP: a bunch of geeks pretending to be speakers of a language nobody speaks. The way of writing of such people, who can't even communicate fluently in the language in question (I'm not claiming fluency in Latin either, but I don't presume to edit on that WP) is wholly irrelevant and should definitely not be taken as a standard. In any case, even if Latin were revived as a spoken language, and became the mother tongue of millions in the modern world, being used in online projects, I would obviously expect them to modify the language to a great degree, adding numerous neologisms to describe the world they were in, and using modern typography, and probably L33t and emoticons to boot! But all this has no bearing on statements we make in encyclopaedia articles about the language of Rome two millennia ago.

Following your argument that modern Latin usage must prevail, even when the point is the describe Classical Latin, one could say that Linnaeus' names for species were the correct names to use in etymologies. For example, saying that Spanish león comes from Panthera leo rather than the Classical accusative LEONEM. After all, Panthera leo is what we see in all the most respected textbooks, isn't it? It is indeed the modern, international standard. If asked for the Latin name for the lion, nobody would come out with LEONEM, would they? Who cares about the truth, eh? Only what most people do counts, doesn't it? Chameleon 22:35, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's not only the Latin Wikipedia doing this though, so your claims about it not being a worthy enough reference are irrelevant. As I already said, the standard in academic works and Latin textbooks is to include the letter u. This article is not the place for opinions on what the "truth" is to be pushed. By the way, the Maori language Wikipedia also use English on their village pump, as do a lot of new Wikipedias, including Arabic when it was smaller so clearly that is no sign of being some sort of joke language. Angela . 00:32, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

They are of course relevant, because that was your example. If it is irrelevant, you made the irrelevant point.
Use of English is definitely a sign that the contributors are non-native and not even proficient in the language in question, and that this language may be a bit of a joke or dead, even if it is not the case with Arabic. I trust there are actual Arabic speakers on that WP now.
The article obviously is the place to push forward the truth, upon which we previously agree here, as with any article.
You need to go to bed. So do I. Goodnight. Chameleon 01:04, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the V was U, they simply wrote the U that way. In the article there should be info that the V is in fact the modern U. Camaleão, you also changed it in the Portuguese lang. article. Although I do not disagree, I think that will mislead people.

FWIW, my preference is that (Vulgar) Latin words used as etymological roots be capitalized, while ordinary Latin text appear in italics like any other foreign language text. This is the way a number of books on the subject I've seen have it, inlcuding the two I cited in the article in chief. I frankly have no strong feelings on the matter, provided that hypothetical roots are always *asterixed. Smerdis of Tlön 03:08, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Portuguese dictionary states: "Aquele" (that one –to people, animals and sometimes things) comes from "eccu elle"

Is "Port. aqueste (*ecce iste)." Portuguese? in modern Portuguese we only use "este" (this one, from ipse) or aquilo from eccu + illud. (means that one – to things). Hugs.-Pedro 23:07, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, aqueste must be mediaeval Portuguese. It certainly occurs in mediaeval Castilian, as well as modern Catalan. Change the article. Chameleon 23:31, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

yes, it is mediaeval Portuguese. I saw it in a medieval poem. -Pedro 00:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oath of Strasbourg translation

"d'ist di en avant" is translated as "till that day". Shouldn't it be "starting today", or literally "from this day on" ? Bogdan | Talk 20:31, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You're slow! I corrected that earlier! — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 21:44, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

aquele, aquela, etc.

I've written in the article all the Portuguese "look" that I remember and searched in the diccionary. For further development of that:

aquele (*eccu ille): that male (person or animal)
aquela (*eccu illa): that female (person or animal)
aquilo (*eccu illud): that thing
cá (*eccu hac): in here
aqui (*eccu hic): in here
acolá (*eccu illac): in there
aquém (*eccu + inde): to here.

-Pedro 12:24, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

what is this article about?

If the title were simply "Late Latin" it would be clear what the article covers; but doesn't the name "vulgar Latin" suggest that using the 2nd century as our starting-point is a little unfair? What about the vulgar speech during the classical era? What article is that covered in? Well, a lot of it is covered here, after all, since (as only tangentially mentioned in the article right now) much of this stuff dates back that far. (Indeed, some can be found in Plautus and Terrence, ca. 200 BCE, two names conspicuously absent from the article.) So shouldn't the article be pushed back earlier in its scope? Or alternatively, divided into two: "Vulgar Latin" and "Late Latin"? Doops 05:20, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you're quite right, "Vulgar Latin" and "Late Latin" are not synonymous. Somewhere in the history of this article, someone decided (wrongly) to set an arbitrary start date on Vulgar Latin. I now think that's unreasonable, and I've amended the introduction accordingly. Deb 21:50, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

pot as metaphor for head

Interestingly enough, this metaphor is present in Hungarian as well, at least in the ironic intimidation "kupan vaglak", meaning approximately "I will hit your cup/bowl", ie, your head:).--Tamas 09:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually the metaphor is in English too, roughly: mug = face. —Muke Tever 17:29, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Breach of NPOV?

"As such, their phonetic erosion was hindered." To speak of phonetic erosion rings with a non-neutral prescriptivist-biased vibe to me.

Go and change all the articles on glaciers, valleys, mountains and rivers first. Chameleon 17:16, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Neuter gender

Apart from a remnant in Italian (le uova fresche), the neuter gender has been kept as a very distinct category in Astur-Leonese, where adjectives have three endings: bonu, bona, bono. The neuter gender in this Romance language has an interesting grammatical usage; see for example http://www.uniovi.es/aal/archivos_pdf/neutro_materia.pdf (in Spanish). Uaxuctum 18:04, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kopf example?

'In Vulgar Latin, classical caput, "head", yielded to testa (originally "pot," a metaphor common throughout Western Europe ? cf. English cup with German Kopf) in most forms of western Romance, including Italian.'

German Kopf is generally recognized as being derived from Latin caput, replacing the original German Haupt (which shares the same root with English head). "Pot" would be Topf, not Kopf, though I guess this is just a coincedence :-) --172.176.226.120 23:23, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I quote from Grimm's Wörterbuch here.

a) es ist erst seit der mhd. zeit allmälich in gebrauch gekommen, und zwar ohne zweifel aus dem vorigen kopf entwickelt, hat aber dann das alte wort dafür, haupt, immer mehr zurückgedrängt und behauptet im eigentlichen sinne nun so gut wie allein den platz. es ist übrigens auszer dem hd. nur noch nd. und nl., kop, während in schwed. hufvud, dän. hoved, engl. head der alte ausdruck den platz behielt (doch vgl. e).

It clearly claims "indeed, without a doubt" developing from the former "kopf".(Cup)

(Actually, the germanic words probably(?) shares the same root as latin Caput. Websters seem to claim otherwise.)

From what I could find out, topf seems related to english deep, dip, dive, and german taufen(baptize).

You seem to confuse etymology and cognates, with words' modern meanings. =S

Fungo

There is no fungo in Spanish, if that's what the article means.

The word appears in my Spanish-English dictionary. Smerdis of Tlön 16:33, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Majorcan

The Majorcan dialect also takes its articles (es, sa) from ipse, ipsa. But since I guess Majorcan diverged from other Catalan dialects quite later, I didn't dare to include it with the Sardinian mention.

Fear of the irrealis

Could the auxliarization of the future be caused by fear of the irrealis? I mean, using the standard future could be seen as a bad omen, like imposing your will on fate. In several languages (and several times), the future has been replaced by a form with "I want to", "I go to", "I have to". See the English will and gonna. I suppose it's a studied phenomenon.

Yes

What is the origin of the word, "Sí", meaning "yes" in spanish, italian and (sometimes) in french? Sic - thus, so? (According to the page about Romanian Language, Latin does not have a word for "yes". Is this true?)

Classical Latin did not have a word for 'yes'. They would have used rough equivalents such as 'Certe'. (Decius)

Yes, "sí" comes from "sic". And more strictly correct would be that Latin had several words used for agreement, but not one that corresponds exactly to English "yes". Apparently the most ordinary word though was "etiam" [2]: Cicero says "aut 'etiam' aut 'non' responde" ("answer either 'yes' or 'no'"). Other yes-like words are ita, sic, sane, maxime, admodum, oppido, certe, plane, and planissime. (source: ISBN 086516438X ) —Muke Tever 15:23, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

S lost

Shouldn't there be something about how the S in middle of words got laxer? In french, it seems basically gone, and in spanish I believe it has often turend into a very lax s-sound...

Caput

The Classical Latin word caput has survived with the same original meaning in the Romanian word cap, which means the 'head' in the anatomical sense, not metaphorical. Capul Meu means 'my head' in Romanian, showing the article attached to the end of the word (cap-ul). The fact that caput survives as cap in Romanian must be stated in the body of the article. Vulgar Latin testa is not used for the 'head' in Romanian in polite speech, because it resonates with the meaning 'skull' that it has in Romanian.

Wrong. "Ţeastă" is still used, but mostly with the meaning of "skull", but also as "head". Bogdan | Talk 19:28, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Classical Latin word testa (which meant pot, jug, shell) entered Romanian and again preserved some of the Classical meanings: ţest means either a type of bell-shaped vessel used to cover hot bakeries or it can mean 'shell'. ţestos means 'having a shell' and ţestoasa means 'shelled'. A turtle or tortoise is often called a broasca ţestoasa which literally means 'shelled frog'. (Decius)

Albus/blancus

Classical only: albus

Classical and Romance: blancus

English: white

Actually, "alb" (<lat. "albus") is Romanian for "white", so it's not "classical only". Bogdan | Talk 20:01, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed that chart was wrong: I fixed it. Spot an error, go ahead and fix it, that's what I say. (Decius)

So it has only survived in Romanian? I believe Romanian is generally the least known Romance language, so it is not strange that it wasn't noted.

Also Romanian is apparently the first language to split from Vulgar Latin as a language of its own, so it's well possible that albus was replaced by blancus after Romanian split off but before any other splits happened. (Normally languages don't split off very neatly, but to my knowledge contacts between what is today Romania and other parts of the late Latin-speaking territory were severed quite suddenly.) But no, Romanian is not the least known Romance language. Occitan and Sardinian, for example, are probably far less known among linguists. Oghmoir 13:35, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

'Blancus' (which is a Latinized spelling/form not the actual form) is a Germanic word, and it was not used in the Latin or in the Vulgar Latin that evolved into Romanian, so Romanian never had the Germanic word 'blancus' in the first place. So that's why the Romanian word for 'white' is alb, inherited from classical Latin albus. Yes, Romanian was the first Romance language to split from Vulgar Latin, and it subsequently became cut off from other Romance languages in the Dark Ages. Decius 05:27, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Blancus" is attested in medieval Latin, both as an adjective meaning "white" and, substantively, meaning a silver coin. (source: Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitas Lexicon Minus) —Muke Tever 06:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If it's from Medieval Latin, then it's most likely a consciously Latinized form of a Germanic word, which of course would not have had the form 'blancus'. Decius 07:26, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well... I was responding to the bit about it being "a hypothetical spelling/form not the actual form". (You may have meant it as referring to the Germanic form, but it read to me as referring to the Latin form, and "blancus" is indeed what it was.)

BTW, I don't see how it was "most likely" consciously Latinized from the German — it was probably just an unconcious Romancism creeping in from the native language of the author(s). This is medieval Latin, not the better-educated Humanist Latin of later periods. —Muke Tever 18:13, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, I said, "which from what I remember is a hypothetical etc..." because I wasn't sure, because I have one reference (American Heritage Dictionary) that says 'blancus' is unattested, but I didn't rely on one reference, so I left the possibility open. So no error was made on my part (if I had said, "it is definitely unattested", then I would have been wrong). I consider it to have been consciously Latinized (there was conscious Latinzation of words going on even in those texts), and I'm not the only one (though it's not "a fact" that it was consciously Latinized, to my knowledge). The Library of Congress Catalog Card number of the american heritage dictionary I referenced is 76-86995, and on pg. 139 you'll find the erroneous statement that 'blancus' is unattested. Decius 00:23, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)